Mage '93

Lost Angels and Out of Time

Investigation on the House at Echo Park day 1

I’ve heard many rumors in regards to the fate of a very specific house that resides in one Echo Park. The residents fear to even step foot on the property which is unusual for such a valuable property.

I began my research on the property at the library and it turns out that there were three homicides at the residents, definitely creating the possibility of a resident spirit or two bound to the property.

Afterwards I headed to the old home to see if anyone could recall the old residents, I prepared 4 dozen cinnamon buns for the residents to ease suspicions and start relations on a good foot. They loved the buns and I noted down the recipe for future improvement. One man in particular caught my interest as he had actually entered the estate. He claimed that as a kid he entered the house to sleep over during the night. When he woke up the next morning 33 years had passed. I want to believe this man but this would not support my theory of a haunt. Ghosts would not cause a time lapse…. I postulated on some possibilities and thought of three answers so far.

1) A mage had created a time warp and caused the man to skip through time…
2) A mage had manipulated the man’s mind so that he forgot the last 33 years of his life
or 3) the man in crazy.

I tried to find out who is the current owner of the estate via the town hall. For some reason finding owner ship of this house caused a ruckus and I was immediately escorted out of the door. Something is fishy is going on in this town, and it definitely isn’t the fresh type of fish.

I decided to visit the estate myself, if the owner was home I could ask for access to the place and if still abandoned I could peak around a bit. I talked to a limo driver outside of the manor he mentioned that the owner isn’t one for hospitality so I returned to my truck to make a batch of cookies as an offering. They turned out a bit better than expected and I was delighted by the results. The spirit of flavor was with me and I must be on the right path.

I headed up to the estate and met several individuals on the way. 1st I met a man by the name of Icarus Flynt, he rejected my offer at first and admitted that he was not the owner of the house. I continued on the way and met an odd fellow by the name of stormy and his sidekick. Stormy claimed to be the owner of the estate and I was ready to ask him if I could proceed with my investigation however when Icarus denied his claim he and his goon chased after him.

When I entered the house I finally encountered Guru Dave who claimed ownership of the property, Stormy rebuked his claimed and each made their case. Obviously by the condition of the estate one of them is a squatter and the other is the actual owner. The question is who? Figuring that the ensuing argument was pointless I went on with my business. I gave myself the sight and immediately detected a presence. The contact was limited but the spirit was clearly bound to this estate perhaps because he was murdered here.

To my surprise Icarus had detected my spell… most of the time when I perform this people just think I am crazy but here before me was a mage. I quickly discovered that the others were mages as well. Which made me think of the man at the retirement home. Had one of these mages caused his curse? Or was it a mere chance? Mages tend to be drawn to nodes and there was a node in the basement of this house I identified later on.

I must learn more about their powers to see if there is a connection.

As it stands, Guru Dave appears to be able to manipulate metal and talks of a silver god which does not exist at the moment.

Stormy’s abilities remain unknown but he doesn’t appear stable, he babbled on about something involving a Walmart employee and how it was connected to Saved by the Bell.

His side kick is either very good at hiding his powers are simply doesn’t have them to begin with.

Icarus said that his powers involve matter, but that is a statement and statements can be lined with falsehood. Plus his reason for being at the manor seem suspicious.

The crazy one plans on going to Walmart tomorrow, I decided to accompany him to see if I can get a read on his powers and see if they are linked to whatever is happening with this house.

A curious confluence.

Today after lab I drove by that old house in Echo Park again. The front door was slightly ajar. I decided this was my opportunity to get a glimpse of the house’s interior, in further effort to determine the cause of the simultaneous affinity and dissonance the house engenders in me.

Once inside, I didn’t have much chance to look around after all, because I immediately heard the groaning of someone in pain. It turned out a man (whom I later recognized as Guru Dave, the hack from those self-help infomercials) had fallen through a hole in the floor to the basement. Fortunately, he wasn’t badly injured. Guru Dave stated that he was the owner of the house and was inspecting it now for the first time, which struck me as unwise, an observation I elected to keep to myself. On the basement floor, not far from where he’d fallen, was inscribed a magic circle, with which I felt a strong affinity. I’ve concluded that this circle must be the source of my attraction to the house.

At that moment, a strong and alluring aroma of baked goods reached us both. I found the oven in the house empty (except for a pair of socks—decidedly not the source of the pleasant smell) and followed the scent outside, where I found a caricature of a man who identified himself simply as “Monsieur” distributing free cookies from a food truck. Immediately suspicious, I declined his offer of one of these cookies. He observed that I had just come from the house and asked if I owned it. I told him no and tried to disengage myself politely from him, suspecting him of underhanded activity, possibly something involving illicit drugs.

At that moment, a young man appeared and assaulted the food truck, demanding cookies. A young woman soon joined him. Both were behaving erratically, which further reinforced my suspicion that the cookies contained some sort of addictive and mind-altering substance. Not wanting to become inadvertently party to a drug deal, I began to retreat to the house. I overheard then the young woman’s (Stormy, I later learned, is her name) claim that she is the owner of the house, in direct contradiction to Guru Dave’s earlier statement that he had just purchased it. Monsieur, Stormy, and Stormy’s associate Tyler all then declared their intention to enter the house, and I decided to go ahead of them and confront/warn Guru Dave.

A chase broke out at that point. Tyler continued to behave erratically, shouting at me in a way that seemed to indicate he is sexually attracted to me, which I found alarming in the context of him pursuing me at full tilt down the street.

We all four arrived at the house at roughly the same time and found Guru Dave still inside. Monsieur indicated that his interest in the house stemmed from his belief that it is haunted and his resulting desire to put to rest the spirits that dwell there. He asked who is the true owner of the house, Guru Dave or Stormy. It turns out the house is Stormy’s and has been in her family for some time—her odd effects scattered around the place provided fair evidence of this—and so Guru Dave’s interest in the house and his motives for falsely declaring his ownership of it remain unknown.

While this discussion was ongoing, I examined Monsieur’s cookies and concluded there was no illegal substance contained in them. I then proceeded to eat several of them. Gauche as it may sound, I can only describe them as a borderline sexual experience. I found myself compelled to eat more and more of them, in flagrant violation of my dietary regimen.

Monsieur at this point began addressing a spirit, one the rest of us couldn’t see. At first, I worried I’d been wrong in my assessment of the cookies, and they would prove to have hallucinogenic effects that would manifest in myself at any moment. But it soon became clear that Monsieur was using magic to commune with the entity. Yes—magic. Soon after, Stormy performed a divination spell, while in the basement Guru Dave molded silver to fill the grooves of the magic circle etched in the concrete of the floor. It became clear then that everyone present in the house—with the apparent exception of Tyler—had magic powers.

This can hardly be a coincidence. I can only suppose some willful intent of the universe brought us together, or else we were all drawn to the resonance of the magic circle in the basement floor.

The discovery led us all to engage in a spontaneous discussion of our respective goals, which made immediately clear that none of us have any objectives whatsoever in common. Why the fates might have brought us together, I couldn’t say. I can only assume for now that my purpose is to thwart Stormy’s frankly delusional plan to upend the “world order” by terrorizing local Wal-Mart employees and Mario Lopez. Mario Lopez notwithstanding, I can’t let her cause harm to innocent people, or otherwise engender chaos in a world that’s already beset by entropy. So I verbally consented to take part in her agenda, with a secret objective of subverting it from within (along with Guru Dave’s vague but alarming plans to create a “god battery”).

Of my three new magic acquaintances, Monsieur, remarkably enough, seems to be most in possession of his faculties. He’s unnaturally preoccupied with food, and I do fear his ability to craft sugary treats that I feel compelled to consume in violation of my strict nutritional regimen. But there’s something very down-to-Earth about him on the whole, and he seems rightly skeptical of the aims of the other two.

At any rate, my new mission begins tomorrow. Stormy is planning some kind of offensive against the aforementioned Wal-Mart employees, and she’s instructed us all to meet outside the discount superstore just before dawn. I will attend, purportedly as her ally, though in fact I’ll be doing everything in my power to contain the potential damage she might cause.

This is considerably more excitement than I’m accustomed to, but I admit to somewhat looking forward to the challenge, in the hope that this engagement will help elucidate next steps in my stalled long-term goal of bringing order and balance to the universe.

Cassette Titled "Walmart Phase One Begins"

STORMY: I love them, and I hate everything. I don’t know how to feel about that …

[Sound of more eating]

TYLER: Why are we recording this shit again?

STORMY: So my rise to power is fully documented. After I take down the Illuminati, this is going to be played in museums for kids wearing Lord Vandal masks, because they love their great leader and will want to know all about her.

TYLER: That’s awesome. Wait, what about Tyler masks?

STORMY: Duh.

TYLER: Alright, cool.

STORMY: So, today, while I was out of my house at work, my house that totally doesn’t belong to that weird Guru Dave guy, he snuck in and fell through the trap. I can only assume the trap worked.

TYLER: That shit was tight.

STORMY: It was amazing. I wish we could’ve taped it.

TYLER: He cracked his head and shit.

STORMY: It went better than expected. Anyway, when Tyler and I got back from work—

TYLER: Anyway, when we was driving back, we had the windows rolled down and were blasting music, and then we saw there was this food truck and nice car and shit all parked up on the street. AND we smelled cookies.

STORMY: Yeah, we met a magical chef. He can talk to ghosts.

TYLER: He’s great. I would marry that man if I could.

STORMY: He’ll be useful in the fight against Walmart, Mario Lopez, and the Illuminati. Anyway, the cookies were good, but there were people in our house. That Guru Dave guy from those corny late night infomercials had fallen through the carpet trap. Some other guy was there too.

TYLER: Beautiful.

STORMY: Beautiful. But he was there because he’s, like, weirdly obsessed with my house or something. It’s weird, but it’s cute I guess. He’s got the whole picture wrong though.

TYLER: But he’s beautiful.

STORMY: Yeah. I believe we can convert him to our cause. His name is Icarus, which is the perfect name for someone to join the Avengers of E.V.I.L.

STORMY: Yeah, I managed to convince him, Guru Dave, and Monsieur the Magical Chef to join us in our quest to topple the local Walmart and their kingpin, Samantha Dinsmore.

TYLER: Fuck that bitch.

STORMY: I just know if I can topple her, we can get to Mario Lopez, who’s the next piece of the puzzle.

TYLER: So what’s the plan? We recruited the Avengers of E.V.I.L.

STORMY: And we’re meeting roughly ten minutes before dawn at the Walmart. Goal is to get the payload—Samantha Dinsmore’s stuff. To do it, we’re gonna need to stage a distraction, then slip in, grab the payload, and get out before we get noticed.

TYLER: I’m antsy and shit.

[Sound of glass shattering]

STORMY: Tyler!

Tyler: Shit, sorry.

[Sigh]

STORMY: It’s fine. I hated that mug anyway.

TYLER: You did steal it from our boss.

STORMY: Anyways, tomorrow I’m gonna finally get to use my Phase One mixtape. It has, like, six songs off of In Utero.

TYLER: Ohhhhhh shiiiiiit!

STORMY: Okay, this tape is getting long, and we need to finish this blunt and eat the rest of these cookies. Vandal out.

The adventure log is where you list the sessions and adventures your party has been on, but for now, we suggest doing a very light “story so far” post. Just give a brief overview of what the party has done up to this point. After each future session, create a new post detailing that night’s adventures.

One final tip: Don’t stress about making your Obsidian Portal campaign look perfect. Instead, just make it work for you and your group. If everyone is having fun, then you’re using Obsidian Portal exactly as it was designed, even if your adventure log isn’t always up to date or your characters don’t all have portrait pictures.